Associate Professor in Game Design

zuby.ahmed@bcu.ac.uk

Zuby Ahmed classes himself as a ‘hybrid professor’: a practicing industry veteran and an academic with over 30 years experience. Specialising in Games Design and Enterprise & Employability, his passionate for driving research and innovation within Creative Technologies, as well as championing Equality, Diversity and Inclusivity, facilitates students, academics, and industry practitioners from varied backgrounds to collegiately collaborate, positively transforms practice, place, and people’s lives.

Areas of Specialism: ​

• Digital Expert – Videogames / Software / Extended Reality​
• Project & Creative Director/Producer - over 10k hrs Design-Thinking applied to over 50 projects. ​
• Solution Orientated Multitasker – organised & detailed able to deliver multiple priorities/projects
• Business Insight & Architecture – Business model focused analysing patterns, processes & practices ​
• Client & Stakeholder Management – influence and negotiate consultatively & collaboratively

Reader in Childhood Studies

School of Education and Social Work

Jane.O’Connor@bcu.ac.uk

Jane started her professional life as a primary school teacher and moved into research due to her interests in social constructions of childhood and children's relationship with the media. Jane's PhD thesis was about child stars and much of her subsequent work has focused on 'exceptional' groups of children and representations of children and childhood in the media. She also researches children’s use of digital technology and educational uses of digital technology more widely. Jane was a senior lecturer in Childhood Studies at the University of Wolverhampton for six years and before that she worked as a visiting lecturer in the education department at London Metropolitan University. She joined Birmingham City University in 2013 as a Senior Researcher and became a Reader in 2015.

Senior Research Fellow​

School of Education and Social Work

Vanessa.cui@bcu.ac.uk

Dr Vanessa Cui is currently a Senior Research Fellow at Birmingham City University Centre for the Study of Practices and Culture in Education (CSPACE). Her research work has mainly focused on the interface between education policy and practice from educators’ and learners’ perspectives across fields of education (e.g. teacher education, higher education, further education) in the UK and internationally. In particular, Vanessa’s work focuses on educational policies and practices that promote and enhance inclusivity thus working with learners and practitioners from diverse social and cultural backgrounds has been a key feature of Vanessa’s work. She is highly experienced in researching with learners and educators using a range of social research methodologies and has successfully led the design, delivery and evaluation of funded studies.

Senior Lecturer

School of Computing and Digital Technology

richard.davies@bcu.ac.uk

Richard is a senior lecturer in the Birmingham Institute of Fashion & Creative Art, Wuhan. He is an expert on web technology. He will contribute on this group by providing support on China-UK communication and support building the case study platform. 

Lecturer

College of Computing

Nathan.Dewell@bcu.ac.uk

Nathan Dewell is a Lecturer in Computer Games Technology at Birmingham City University. He is affiliated with the Games and Graphics research division within the DMTLab at BCU. Nathan collaborates with professionals and industry partners to explore innovative technical solutions. Additionally, he serves as the organiser of Birmingham XR, a monthly XR conference that fosters a community of Cross Reality enthusiasts and provides education and insights on topics related to Augmented Reality (AR) and Virtual Reality (VR). Nathan's expertise extends beyond games programming, encompassing areas such as Project Management and Game Design. With a strong passion for developing and publishing video games for web and mobile platforms, Nathan constantly seeks to simplify software and video game development processes. He achieves this by leveraging modern software and techniques to break down barriers that might hinder individuals from entering this dynamic discipline.​

Senior Lecturer

Faculty of Art Design and Media

School of Jewellery Fashion and Textiles

adam.francis@bcu.ac.uk 

Adam is a fellow of the Higher Education Academy with a background in menswear, fashion visualisation and socially conscious messaging that informs a teaching practice across The Birmingham Institute Of Jewellery Fashion and Textiles at Birmingham City University. Currently developing a body of research around digital fashion, the metaverse, and related digital technologies.

Senior Research Fellow

Faculty of Computing, Engineering and The Built Environment

michael.grace@bcu.ac.uk

Mike Grace is a chartered town planner and has extensive experience in land use planning and place making through working in UK local authorities and national government agencies. He was Head of Planning Services at Carlisle City Council and Head of Profession for Sustainable Land Use at Natural England. Mike’s research interests include smart-sustainable cities and developing national standards for urban green infrastructure for England. 

Mike is interested in research that can help integrate policies and solutions for urban futures and especially smart-natural city concepts. In particular, how blue and green infrastructure can create sustainable land use and new ways of regenerating and managing urban areas that deliver benefits to citizens. 

Between 2011 and 2014, Mike led the volunteer group which developed the Much Wenlock Neighbourhood Plan, one of the 17 UK national front-runners and the first in the West Midlands to be ‘made’. He continues to advocate the importance of the Much Wenlock NP and is part of the network of ‘national champions’ for neighbourhood planning run by Locality

Senior Lecturer in the Centre of Digital Media Technology

Course leader for BSc & MSci Computer Games Technology

School of Computing and Digital Technology

Xi.guo@bcu.ac.uk

Dr Xi Guo is the lead of the REAL FLC. She also leads the Web Game Development and 3D Game Programming modules

Dr Guo has previously worked as a software engineer in the HELS faculty at Birmingham City University and was involved in the design and implementation of online simulation systems such as Virtual Case Creator and Virtual Moving and Handling. She founded and has led a cross faculty learning community called the REAL FLC (Reality Enhanced Augmented Learning - Faculty Learning Community) since 2017. The community members are academics from different disciplines such as radiography, nursing, midwifery, education, media, psychology, and computer science. During this time, Dr Guo has been leading research projects using immersive technology for teaching and learning such as the Virtual Escape Room for Anatomy Learning, Augmented Reality learning resources for primary school education, nursing and midwifery. Prior to working at Birmingham City University, she was a research assistant at De Montfort University on the project of iCARE (Distributed Integrated Care Service and Systems) and a web-based educational game for group-based users.

Associate Professor, Director of Future Games and Graphics

School of Computing and Digital Technology

carlo.harvey@bcu.ac.uk

Carlo is an expert on Computer Graphics and Artificial Intelligence (AI), which are key technologies to support AR and MR. He has a lot of experience in both industry project management and research project management. He is the course lead for BSc Computer Games Technology and the Director of Future Games and Graphics overseeing the research arm for Games and Graphics within the DMT Lab at BCU. He is a co-founder of Curzon Software House, which is an initiative to aid students develop their skills, work on industry projects and gain experience through working in the field. He will collaborate on the case study with his expertise on AI and computer vision.

Lecturer in Smart Computer Systems

School of Computing and Digital Technology

moad.idrissi@bcu.ac.uk

Moad is a Lecturer in Smart Computer Systems in the School of Computing and Digital Technology at Birmingham City University. He holds a 1st class BEng in Electronic Engineering, MSc in Embedded Systems from The University of Birmingham, and holds a PhD in the domain of Aerial Robotics from Birmingham City University.

With over 5 years of teaching and research experience, Dr Idrissi is currently an interdisciplinary researcher in robotics with a broader interest in automation through human-robot interaction and perception sensing. He has published multiple peer-reviewed articles in top-tier journals and conferences. His research work received the best paper award in 2020 and 2022 in recognition of the contributions by IEEE.

Lecturer in Media and Communication with a New Media specialism

Birmingham School of Media

robin.kay@bcu.ac.uk

Robin has a background within the music industry having worked for several notable record labels and industry organisations including: Ministry of Sound Recordings, Defected Records, Sanctuary Records and PRS. He has extensive experience within education and teaches creative and digital media subjects focused around web authoring, visual communication and immersive media. With an interest in interactive and immersive media, he is currently working on several projects involving emerging and innovative technology within an educational context.  Robin is currently working with BCU’s STEAMhouse as an Academic Coordinator to support their immersive media provision and is engaged with the Reality Enhanced Augmented Learning Faculty Learning Community (REAL FLC) situated in the Faculty of Health, Education and Life Sciences.

Associate Professor, UK Govt. SAGE Advisor (SARS CoV-2)​

Head of Dept Statutory and Mandatory Education and Compliance/ Skills and Simulation

Faculty of Health, Education and Life Sciences ​

stephen.wanless@bcu.ac.uk

Dr Steve Wanless, is an Associate Professor in Posture, Movement and Handling and Clinical Lead within the Centre for Excellence in Posture, Movement and Handling within the Faculty of Health, Education and Life Sciences at BCU. He has an interest in the integration of wearable technology to support practical moving and handling skills training and its use to assess posture and change behaviour in healthcare, sport and industry and the development of e-learning packages to promote competence with moving and handling theory. He will provide support on the PhD study on project evaluation and digital training for healthcare.​

Lecturer in Psychology​

School of Social Sciences

Angel.Tan@bcu.ac.uk

Angel is interested in the teaching and learning of statistics and critical thinking as two of the most valuable skills among university graduates.​

Her PhD focuses on using technology-enhanced learning interventions to improve university students’ learning experience of statistics and critical thinking. She is passionate about teaching and aims to undertake more research that can help to inform teaching practices in the future.

Apart from teaching and research, she is also a Certified Behaviour Analyst with the experience of providing behaviour therapy services to children with autism.​

Reader in Environmental Design

Birmingham School of Architecture and Design

jieling.xiao@bcu.ac.uk  

Jieling teaches Environmental Design at the Birmingham School of Architecture. She completed her B.Arch in Architecture at Wuhan University of Technology in China and holds an MArch degree in Urban Design from University College London. Jieling’s Ph.D explored smellscapes in intermodal transit spaces in the UK and China from a cross-cultural perspective, awarded by Urban Studies and Planning Department, University of Sheffield.